THE NEW FORESTRY. 37 



It may be remarked here that since the subject of forestry 

 has been revived in this country it has been often asserted, and 

 with truth, that if our present system be wrong, Scottish writers 

 on forestry and Scottish foresters have been mainly to blame 

 and that, after all, the most profitable woods are to be found 

 in England where Scottish forestry practices have obtruded 

 least. 



Brown's " Forester," which in its original form has seen 

 several editions, the last issued in 1 882, has been the generally 

 acknowledged exponent of British practice, and has been 

 followed unquestioningly, both in precept and practice, by 

 foresters, as our forest literature and our woods show con- 

 clusively. Where Brown derived his ideas of practical forestry 

 from, such as they are, may be gathered from a perusal of the 

 works of the older and better-known English and Scotch 

 writers who preceded him. His " glances " at the forests of 

 Europe, outside his own country, are vague, general and brief, 

 and show that he drew no inspiration from that quarter, 

 although he did profess to deal with the forestry of the 

 four quarters of the globe down to the issue of his last edition 

 in 1882. His silence on the forestry methods of Germany 

 and France, carried on on well-established principles during 

 his time, seem, to indicate an almost total unacquaintance with 

 the subject, and an entire ignorance of the fact that in these 

 countries timber culture was practised successfully on principles 

 diametrically opposed to his. It can hardly be credited that, 

 had he known anything of the complete forestry system already 

 established in the countries named and elsewhere, he would 

 have ventured to suggest the necessity of an improved system 

 of forestry for the whole world, especially for European 

 States, which he does do (pp. 8 — 36). Throughout Brown's 

 writings one sees evidence that he viewed forestry not so much 

 from an industrial and financial as from an artificial cultural 

 point of view, and did not realise the possibilities of the home 

 timber trade, the nature of the demand, nor the extent of the 

 competition from abroad. This is shown in his notes on the 

 " economic uses " of different species. His botanical descrip- 

 tions of our familiar forest trees are elaborate enough to enable 

 foresters to identify familiar species if they did not know them 

 by sight ; but his account of their uses and value as timber 

 trees is of the baldest. Taking the oak, for example, the first 

 on his list and one of the most important, the thread-bare story 

 of the falling-off in demand because oak is not now used for 

 the navy is repeated, and the most important purposes men- 



